end of courtesy
by grim grace
Summary: Bill takes Caroline with him when he leaves Mystic Falls. Safer for her, better for all of them in the long run. But Maryland Texas has no shortage of vampires and some things fate has you learn no matter what. This changes things. (Vampire Hunter!Caroline AU).


**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything you recognise. The title of this fic is a quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which also belongs to its proper owners (all hail the king, Mr. Whedon etc).

**a/n: **So, I know everyone is expecting more of 'every little thing' to come out soon, and I feel bad for starting a new fic while that's still miserably WIP, but I'm having major issues with it at the moment. I figured this will help with writers block, and I sincerely hope that I'll have an update there for you very soon.

Regarding this story, the abundance of Klaroline fic out there makes me think that this premise has probably already been written—but I'm woefully behind so I can at least plead ignorance in the face of plagiarism charges, yes?

(**update: 24 March 2013**: updated and reworked, republished for your viewing pleasure. I'll work on the next chapter right away. Hopefully you enjoy!)

— _**one —**_

\\

**Bill Forbes Message Bank**

**Tuesday 5:01pm **

_Hey Bill. It's Liz. Look, I think Caroline should maybe skip the visit this time. Some – some _unsavoury _characters are in town and I don't – look, maybe we should just postpone for a couple of months? Call me back. _

**Thursday 7:46pm **

_Bill. Liz again. I emailed you a couple of days ago about sending me some sources from your library. There are specifics in the email but you haven't replied so I'll assume you missed it. Get Caroline to call me, please. _

**Friday 6:32pm**

_Bill. Call me. I just got – look, just _call me.

**[end messages]**

\\

Caroline snaps awake and for a second, thinks that her heart just might leap out of her throat. It's a horrible feeling, like she's about to vomit and pass out at the same time, like her skin is too uncomfortable and her limbs aren't hers. As they fall back under her control, she lets out a hacking cough, that turns into a sob at the last second. Her vision is swimming in front of her eyes and her skull is pounding in her head, like someone's taken hold of her ears and shaken her as hard as they could.

Her father's face swims into focus.

He is waving his hand across her face, snapping his fingers, trying to get her attention. He repeats her name, a soft command. Caroline. Caroline. Caroline.

It all peaks and snaps with a moment of blinding clarity and then she's back.

Her father's voice is loud and clear now and she focuses on him, lifting her head—finally hers to control again. She smiles weakly at him, feels her cheeks flush with frustration and steadfastly doesn't look at the other _thing _that's in the room with them.

It didn't fucking work.

"How long?" She asks quickly, blinking her eyes and harshly pushing away the hot tears of disappointment that suddenly threaten to spill.

Her father, her perfect father, smiles and cups the side of her face, his thumb brushing away the one stray tear that manages to escape her control. "Shorter this time." He says. "You resisted."

Caroline shrugs his hand away. She understands, on some level, that she should be happy with any kind of progress. Bill is here to make sure she doesn't kill herself getting to the ultimate goal. But then she'll have to see him do it all over again, shrug the compulsion off like it's second nature and damnit, it makes her angry. This isn't something that should be hard. This is taking control of her own mind—not allowing it to be the plaything of some monster in the night—and it's fucking important.

She tenses her shoulders. "Again."

She doesn't have much of a range of movement right now. For her own safety, she's strapped to the chair in the middle of the room. The bindings are soft so that they don't cut into her arms or legs, but tight—strong enough to keep her down. It doesn't take much (she's hardly been blessed with strength or power) but her self defence lessons have been paying off and at least she's not just counting on her cheerleading muscles like she was this time last year.

The bonds are mostly precautionary. The process is relatively simple and mostly risk free. But where vampires are involved, Caroline's learnt to always expect the worst.

This particular vampire is a young guy. He's got dark hair and really green eyes, and he's kind of rocking the Edward Cullen look. (Yeah, let Caroline tell you all about how those books have made her life a shit stick and a half harder these days). It's a baiting technique, Bill calls it. A way to get the young girls out into the alley—makes their bloody death less conspicuous (that bit he kind of spat in the face of the vamp. Said vamp just kind of snarled back).

His hair is gross though. A mullet that he forgot to get rid of when the grunge decade finished. His clothes are dirty, shabby, and looked that way before they caught him and put him in this basement. He's chained in the corner—a leather collar soaked in vervain keeps him neutralised while he's not tied to the wall.

Usually, she and her father aren't so barbaric to keep them locked up. It's easier for the both of them to just get away clean—stake and repeat, etc.—because you can never know for sure if a vamp's got friends that are going to come looking for it. But Bills still got lessons for Caroline to learn and there's only one way to get the practical exam out of the way.

Bill looks at his daughter closely for another second, before sighing and nodding. "Last time tonight, Caroline." He says, and Caroline can tell from the tone he takes that argument is not on the table.

Ha, like that'll stop her.

Bill beckons the vampire forward, and it moves. It's only motive is the blood bag that is stashed in the room outside—food is a really good motivational tool, Caroline's learnt. He glares at them though, as he walks over.

He leans down in front of Caroline and looks right into her eyes.

Caroline tightens her grip on the chair arms and braces herself. She clenches her teeth together, swallows once, and then looks right back.

"_Sit still and shut up._"

She feels it take hold of her at once. Being compelled is an odd feeling—one that most people shouldn't be able to remember consciously. It's probably one part mind control, and another part sheer human survival instinct. The feeling of getting compelled, even when you look at it from the strictly physical point of view is disgusting. It's dirty, like someone's inside of you, crawling around your body and clawing at your skin from the inside. Your lungs seize up and your brain goes vacant and every other muscle in your body is telling you to get rid of this thing—which it does by activating the gag reflex.

If every human remembered what that shit was like to go through, then there would be a hell of a lot less humans in the world.

Still, Bill is adamant that the fact that Caroline can feel it—feel it as control is ripped away from her—is a good sign. It means she's halfway on her way to shaking it off.

The order this time is tame, obviously (because Bill's got a crossbow pointed at the vampire so he's not going to make her do anything bad). But it's worse in a way, because Caroline loses any control to move herself.

Sit still, she's been told and that force is doing as it's told, keeping her arms frozen.

This must be what it feels like for those people who get trapped in their bodies, Caroline thinks vaguely. Her mind is kind of spinning, confusion from obeying orders and trying to disobey at the same time. Compulsion these days is kind of distracting. No one's really sure what the process of compulsion is (duh, it's not like they're doing university studies on the subject) but they're pretty sure that some level of it is just distraction.

Caroline's mind lingers on those people who get trapped in their bodies. There was a movie about it, Jessica Alba and the guy that Rachel Bilson almost married that wasn't the guy who played Seth Cohen. (By the way, that was a mistake. Who could choose anyone over Seth fucking Cohen?) Anyway, the movie, Caroline thinks. Some guy who was having an operation but was stuck in his body, awake the whole time. It was a horror movie, she thinks, but a pretty shit one. It was only really scary because apparently it was based on a true story.

Maybe, if Hollywood wasn't talking out of its ass like it usually was, that's what happened to those people. Compulsion gone wrong—they're awake but they're not.

Her mind takes her somewhat errantly back to compulsion, but it's enough to remind her drifting thoughts about what she's trying to do here.

Right.

Compulsion.

She's being compelled.

Everything she's feeling sweeps over her again, when she makes herself aware of it (for the second time in minutes) but it's easier now.

She tenses her muscles—and that's a good sign, right? Sit still and shut up? She shouldn't be able to tense her muscles if she's been told to sit still.

Something echoes through her, a bang or something and she jumps a little bit. Her eyes frantically move but she can't really focus on anything. Just dark shapes, moving in front of her.

Fear kind of floods her then. Something's happening that she doesn't know about. There's something from a couple of seconds ago that she can't remember and she thinks she should be worried about it but—like she said—she can't remember why.

Beyond the physical side of compulsion, there's the mental part of it. Since it's all about mind control anyway, and Caroline's pretty much confined to her head right now—she knows that there's going to be some sort of mental repercussions.

The first time though, the first time she'd managed to wake up while compelled, feel what it was like to have your body in someone else's charge—she'd promptly freaked the fuck out.

It was one of those things, her dad said when he'd got her out of it before she could fall catatonic or some shit. Like rape victims, who lose every ounce of control they have and feel they can never get it back. It's why trying to shake compulsion is so dangerous. It can lead to mental breaks and PTSD and all kinds of other shit.

Not today though. Caroline wasn't giving up that easily. If you're going to stop trying to learn how to break compulsion just because you're scared of someone having control over you—isn't that logic just a bit fucked?

Sit still and shut up.

Fucking _no. _Caroline's finger twitches a bit and it makes her jump again. The dark shapes are still dancing across her vision a little bit, front and back like some sort of weird game.

Sit still and shut up.

She doesn't fucking _want _to sit still.

She's focused on her feet, trying to get those to move. The dancing people in front of her are inspiration enough. She wants to know who they are, what's going on and why there's a part of her that's desperately worried about it.

Something bumps viciously into her leg, and that's enough.

Caroline snaps out of it. She feels everything again (the nausea, the confusion, the pounding headache, the swimming vision) but it comes back faster.

Fast enough for her to see that the two dancing people—? Yeah, really not dancing. And she's worried because one of them is her father, and he's currently wrestling with a really pissed off vampire.

"You're making a mistake," Bill grits out, as he yanks the vamps hands away from his neck. The vervain collar is still attached, which means that the vamp is probably crippled by the pain, but the shackles that had been on are gone now.

Caroline looks for the failsafe release of the chair. Her mind is still a little confused, but not enough that she can't reach down and grasp the small lever underneath the wood of the left chair arm. She yanks, and if it sticks a little it doesn't matter because the bindings come loose instantly.

The vampire snarls. "You invited me inside your house to keep me in the fucking basement, _Bill._ Do you think I'm _that _stupid?"

Bill doesn't reply, too busy clutching at the vampires hands around his neck. Caroline gets up clumsily, because come on—she's just thrown off the compulsion give her a break. The vampire swings around as her noise gets its attention—and it's enough of a distraction that her father has time to grab a stake on the floor nearby and plunge it into the vampire's back.

The grey vein-y body lands on top of him with a thump. Bill grunts a little under the weight, but grins at his daughter. "Well done." He says.

She's pretty sure it's for throwing off the compulsion (even though she's still too fucking slow) but it could be for playing the loud distraction.

"Help me get this thing off me." He calls, and she distracts herself from her disappointment by doing just that. As she yanks on the lapels of the dead vampire's jacket, she makes a mental note to remember to burn the clothing. It's from the nineties and the world shouldn't have to endure another second of this guys' obscure fashion statement.

\\

Bill and Caroline left Liz when Caroline was five.

It wasn't one of those active choices, of course. And it wasn't one of those dramatic, '_I'm taking the kid and leaving you for a male model'_ things either. It was a civil discussion that took Caroline with her father instead of her mother. Caroline couldn't remember it but surely the basics were simple:

Bill couldn't stay with Liz because he's recently discovered that he was a little more attracted to Adam than Even. Liz was always at work, focusing on the town's problems before her family. (Insert what was assuredly an irate Liz screaming at Bill that he was the one who went to lay some pipe, not her and if he tried to blame her for it he would have a whole other thing coming to him. Followed quickly, of course, by Bill sedating her with calming gestures and his soothing voice).

And then Liz and Bill had probably talked about how, if they wanted Caroline to grow up a normal life, she should get as far away from Mystic Falls as they could take her.

Vampire activity was down, sure, but both her parents knew that if Caroline was going to have a better life, it would be in a town where there was no vampire activity _at all_. Bill would give up his hunting ways to keep his daughter safe – and so he took Caroline away, to a new town where he could start living his life as a single dad and an out and proud gay man.

Moving away hadn't been hard for Caroline – she'd been five, so it had been easy enough for Caroline to make new friends, and ignore the stigma that followed her dad around. By the time that became an issue for her, Bill was already embedded in the town's council – and no one cared that he was gay, at least out loud.

It didn't take long to get her place sorted out – Caroline was strong and driven and really freaking motivated – and the top of the school wasn't so hard to find when you had all the directions. She wasn't some sort of queen bee or anything – nothing so cliché. She was on the cheerleading team for a while, before her _extra curriculars _got in the way – so she didn't hang out with the crowd. But she had a kicking sense of style and a take no shit attitude that people seemed to respect. Her grades were fair enough, and the only thing she knew better than how to put an outfit together was how to destroy the self esteem of a teenage girl in three words or less.

Oh, and kill vampires. (Call it a special talent, maybe).

Eventually, having a gay dad became less of a social wrong and more of a social right. (Seriously, people who'd made fun of her in grade school would come up to her now and tell her exactly how glad they were that her Dad was standing up for his rights and his beliefs. Caroline had to really refrain from using her special talent on those people).

She wasn't supposed to have learnt about the vampires though. But it turned out that Maryland, Texas wasn't much safer than Mystic Falls in the long run.

With the revelation that vampires were real (a particularly foolish vampire munching on one of the kids from the alternative learning school, that was promptly staked through the heart by her own _freaking father_), meant that Caroline's life spiralled to Winchester levels of out of control.

Because, again if you missed it, vampires were real. And her dad _hunted _them.

It was surreal to say the least.

But Caroline Forbes was nothing if not quick thinking – coming to terms with it didn't take long, not after she sat her father down and demanded answers.

Convincing her dad to teach her to kill them too was a little harder – but she was still Caroline Forbes and there wasn't much she couldn't talk someone into with the right about of time and such.

(She'd staked vampires now – watched them shrivel up while their veins turned black, which was terrifying most of the time because they looked just like people and – well, whatever. She'd get over it).

Still, she had her friends and she had her dad – and she visited her mum every six months, when the awkward emails got a little too bland – so her life wasn't so bad. And what does it matter if she had a bit of a real life 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' thing going on? (Minus the necrophilia kink, though, so that was an upside). It was awesome, as far as she was concerned. What other seventeen year old could say that they had definitively helped out the _world. _

And yeah. In the long run, this vampire shit will stop and she'll move on. She's going to have a normal life, in a world that she's made safer for her own children by killing some members of the undead.

The white picket fence and shit. That's all she asks for.

\\

Halfway through trying to get rid of the body, the phone rings. There's a moment when Caroline just assumes they'll ignore it – in favour of getting rid of the now decaying and frankly quite _smelly _body in their hands – but Bill motions for her to head upstairs.

"It's probably your mother. I keep missing her calls, and if you don't get this one I'm afraid she might come here to see what the problem is." He says.

Caroline grimaces because Liz is always a little testy when they miss her calls, but she's happy enough to be rid of the disposal responsibility. Bill doesn't have the option of cop out, because he can't head upstairs until he's cleaned himself up. He's covered in vampire guts and blood, bleeding from the nose with the start of a noticeable black eye.

She drops the vampire's legs to the ground and Bill grunts a bit under the added weight.

"Bring me the first aid kit when you came back, will you?" He calls out as Caroline reaches the foot of the stairs.

She nods and heads upstairs, taking the steps two at a time and heading straight for the phone. They keep a phone monitor just near the top of the basement stairs, so they can reach it if they're down stairs before the phone rings out – so she catches it around the fourth ring.

"Hello?"

Sure enough, it's Liz – who lets out a sigh when the phone's finally picked up.

"Caroline," she sounds so relieved, as a matter of fact, that Caroline frowns a little bit. "I'm glad you picked up."

This was only a little weirder than other phone calls that she'd gotten from her mother, but she tries hard to sound like she isn't worried. She doesn't want Liz to start stressing about Caroline on top of whatever it was that had her mother so strung out

"Hey Mum." She says, trying to sound upbeat. "What's up?"

Liz sighs. "Have you spoken to your father about coming down over the break?" she asked.

Caroline hadn't, but it was always the same conversation anyway, so there was no reason for Liz to know that. "Sure," she says casually.

Liz lets out another sigh of relief. "That's good. Did you father explain why you won't be coming? Because I think it's the best thing to do under the circumstances – "

"Wait what?"

Liz pauses and Caroline doesn't even care that she's suddenly given herself away, even if her mother apparently does.

"You said you'd spoken to your father." Liz says disapprovingly.

Caroline nods. "Yeah, when I thought it was the same old story – I thought I was coming down in a couple of weeks."

Liz leaves a thoughtful silence, maybe half annoyed with Caroline's lie and half guilty for the late change of plans. Caroline doesn't see her mother regularly – usually leaving month long gaps between visits. The situation works out because they find themselves at odds more often than not, but that doesn't mean Caroline doesn't like seeing her mother.

Like, she's her _mother _for god's sake – and sure, her dad's sexuality meant that they couldn't stay together happily, and it was safer for Caroline to be away from Mystic Falls with Bill – but Caroline loved her.

And she'd been looking forward to seeing her friends in Mystic Falls. (She didn't really stay in touch too often, but Elena, Bonnie, Matt and Tyler always seemed happy to see her when she arrived).

"Some new characters have shown up in town," Liz explains begrudgingly. Because her mum's a sheriff she's allowed to say things like 'new characters' but it still makes Caroline laugh when she thinks about it – she can't quite help herself now. She can practically hear Liz frown over the phone. "_Dangerous _ones, Caroline."

In the end the decision is essentially made for her. Liz explains that she and Bill have talked about it and Caroline will come down in three months, instead of three weeks. It's not like Caroline can just steal her Dad's car and drive to Virginia – not that she's _that _determined to visit. But she makes her mother swear that in exchange for this, Bill can come too and they'll have a family day.

(It never hurts to feel too ordinary, right? And a part of her yearns for the days when she and her parents would sit on the floor of their lounge room and watch Disney movies together, eating the popcorn her father burnt).

"Stay safe, won't you Caroline?" Liz asks as their conversation ends.

Caroline a couple of years ago, before the vampire revelation would have scoffed at that. Like she had anything to be scared of, right? (Like she said, her relationship with her mother has always been a little more complex than most).

This time, Caroline just bites her lip and softly nods. "You too, Mum – love you."

She hangs up and heads back down. Bill's pulled the heavy outer clothing from the vampire – the gross jacket, the belt and the chains from his dirty jeans. Caroline puts the first aid kit down loudly, catching his attention and he looks up and grins.

"Ready to get this one done, kiddo?"

\\

"Hey, Care! Smile for the fucking camera!"

Caroline spins around, one of her giant smiles on her face as she catches Cole's eye.

"Clean your mouth out." She shouts back, but she strikes a pose anyway. Her best friend leaps on her shoulders just as he presses down on the shutter, so her smile is probably immortalised looking a bit more confused than she'd anticipated.

There's a pause, and she and Tilly stumble a little (force of the impact and such) while Cole consults the result of his shot, on the tiny digital image on the back of the camera.

He lets out a bark of laughter that catches the girl's attention.

"This is it." He declares loudly. "This is the photo I will keep of you forever." He takes a couple of steps closer to them and pushes the camera below their noses.

It's dark, dusk, but you can still see both girl's faces as they grin at the camera (and yes, Caroline's expression is an unfortunate mix of enthused and bewildered) in the dramatic lights of the carnival rides. The crowd has thinned slightly while everyone paused for a bit of a food break, but it's the rides area and they're always more busy than most.

Tilly's wearing some devil horns (that she didn't win from any game, but was rather given as a bit of a consolation prize in exchange for her phone number), and Caroline's got a giant size elastic tie around her neck that flashes every couple of seconds and has the words '_pop that booty fly girl_' on the front. She would look the most ridiculous if Cole wasn't wearing a shirt with a perfectly proportioned bikini clad torso on the front, giving the impression that it's him with the breasts and not the shirt.

"That best not be a dig about how I photograph, darling." Tilly says, grabbing his chin, with the hand not preoccupied with her bright pink fairy floss, and wiggling it slightly in her hands.

Cole pulls a face. "I would never!" he sounds affronted, but he barley holds it for long, letting out another of his laughs. He leans forward, draping his long arms over their shoulders and flipping the camera in his hands. "Alright ladies, group shot."

They all strike another pose and laugh once the picture is taken, blinking away the purple dots in their eyes.

Cole cackles and presses his lips to Caroline's neck – a quick peck – and does exactly the same thing to Tilly.

"You girls have been so lovely to me." He gushes, his accent stumbling over the words. He says them too fast or something, but all of a sudden he sounds like the perfect southern gentleman. It's almost a caricature of an accent, at this point.

Tilly brushes his comment away like she would a fly in the air.

"Hush now, friend. What would we call ourselves if we didn't pity the new kid?"

Pity is a strong word, Caroline thinks as she lets out a laugh. Cole evidentially feels the same way, poking at Tilly suddenly.

"You said '_envy' _wrong." He says. Then he pushes her face towards her fairy floss and she shrieks her protest.

Cole pulls himself away for a moment and holds up his cell phone. "Gimme a second, darlings." He says, waving it at them. "I gotta text my brother."

"I didn't know you have a brother?"

Cole winks. "There's a lot you girls don't know about me, sweets." He winks, before turning to his phone. He takes a couple of seconds to himself, before spinning back around. "Now, which one of you fine ladies wants to go on the roller coaster with me?"

(Caroline ends up riding with him, but she beat him up more than anything, the g-force slamming her into him while she laughed and he cried out in pain).

The evening goes like this until the sun fully sets and Caroline decides to put her dad's worries at ease and head home. She leaves them around eight o'clock that night, bowing out on account of her Dad and it being a Sunday.

This is how she wants her life to go, she thinks as she walks home. She can split it, keep it segmented like this. Killing a vampire on Saturday, town fair with her friends on a Sunday.

It's really not that hard.

She's barely got her key in the lock, when the front door it pulled open and her father yanks her inside. His gaze darts up and down the street, eyes wide and worried, and Caroline has just enough time to start saying, "Dad, what the –?" before he's closed the door again and locked it.

"Pack your things." He says to her, incredibly serious. He's clutching the phone in his hand, and it's still flashing like someone's on the other end. It's her mother's phone number.

"We're going to Mystic Falls."

— **tbc — **

\\

**a/n:** so some explanations. Basically, I wanted spunky vampire Caroline, but I wanted her as a human. Therefore, my Caroline is sort of a hybrid of the two—who's learning how to kick vampire ass at the same time. I'm not sure how long this fic will be, and I'm not going to make any predictions because I'm pretty shit at that sort of thing and I'll probably end up being wrong. I am writing this at two AM in the morning and I do not have a beta (any takers?) so all mistakes are my own. If there are any major ones that need my attention, let me know.

Also, this is set at the end of the third season/start of the fourth season time. Klaus will appear sometime soon, but I'm not entirely sure when. Please review and let me know what you think. Feel free to give me suggestions on where you'd like to see this story go.

I love you all, and go vote for the Klaroline awards. A lot of fantastic authors are there, and I've already voted :D


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